Is it DnD, or MtG? (General Griping)

[diaglo]

Long post, so to summarize: D&D + M:TG = good*.

this is pretty much how Peter Adkison presents the case in the 30 years of Adventure book too.

old TSR rejected the sell and Peter.

it wasn't until they (T$R) were over a barrel... well read the Million Dollar Fax story in the book.

 

[Piratecat]

Fred, I know you were joking (or at least used a smiley!), but we frown on false press releases around here. Heck, we've suspended someone in the past for falsely claiming to be a WotC employee when writing a fake press release. Please try to avoid that particular type of sarcasm in the future.

Thanks. Drop me an email (address in the Meta forum) if you want to discuss it.

 

[Psion]

But this is the same as saying "just because a calculator is available for calculus, doesn't mean you have to use it."

I'm really not sure what you are trying to say here, since most calculators don't have the sort of symbolic manipulation capability you need to do calculus. In college, I used my calculator for physics, chemistry and linear algebra; hardly ever calculus.

If you want to play with any real chance of survivablility or use any new products(barring DM intervention), you'll need to follow the system, and not the concept or storyline you want (power attack chains vs Improved Critical is a good example).

No, you really don't. Unless your GM plays that way. I don't play that way and I can't say I personally know any who do. Folks like those that hang out on the smackdown forum on WotC are an inevitable subset of the D&D audience, but are clearly in the minority.

My current or historical players have not played this way, yet somehow their character usually survive to the end of an adventure.

Similarly, in a game a friend of mine was running, he allowed the players to use any published resource. Third party or otherwise. Could have been a problem. But it wasn't, because we were out to play a game and have fun, not show off our mighty mechanical constructs.

The RAW don't tell me to push the PCs to the limit every encounter. Quite the contrary, actually. In the DMG, the typical encounter is clearly designed to be several notches below the character's capabilities.

I really have a hard time beleiving your problem is with the game as it is, not your image of it or the playstyles of those you associate with.

 

[Belen]

Folks like those that hang out on the smackdown forum on WotC are an inevitable subset of the D&D audience, but are clearly in the minority. My current or historical players have not played this way, yet somehow their character usually survive to the end of an adventure.

How much turnover do you have in your group, Psion? How diverse has your 3e groups been?

The character builders/ SMackdown people are NOT the minority of 3e players. Just sit down with the thousands of LG people and you will see them in their majority glow at any given time.

The argument that it is

1.) GM fault
2.) People you play with fault

is used way too often to avoid discussing a real problem with 3e.

I agree that

1.) 3e rocks and is a superior system
2.) 3e is fun to play
3.) 3e fixed a lot of baggage of older editions

However, you cannot say that 3e does not have its flaws, or that those flaws are entirely GM or Player fault. You have to lay some of the blame at the system and the method it's promoted.

Here are some of the problems:

1.) Rules bloat and complexity (even within the core books)
2.) Lack of core GM support, official methods to make a GMs life easier, sheer abundance of options can be overwhelming for a GM.
3.) Lack of built in flavor- EVERYTHING is mechanical (ie- it's hard to add drama and flavor to some very dry crunchy rules.)

There is a lack of ....wonder....in the current edition. Everything is spelled out, quantified, and has a place. This can be good and bad.

For every good that has a great time playing, there are GMs who sit behind a table and listen to players dissect their NPCs by guessing at their abilities, roll knowledge skills just to find out mechanics of monsters "In character" that the player already knows (call it meta-phishing) and wonder at how to handle this without going nuts.

Ignoring the problem or assigning blame to GMs does not make the problem go away. The rules and how they are promoted are at least equal in the blame department.

 

[Psion]

How much turnover do you have in your group, Psion? How diverse has your 3e groups been?

Let's see. Since it came out, I have
1) Been involved in 5 d20 groups in some form (not counting conventions, game days, visits home, things like that), and
2) My "core" group has experienced a TOTAL player turnover (I live near a military base and many of my players get new orders)

The character builders/ SMackdown people are NOT the minority of 3e players.

Take a look at the participation of the character optimization forum at the WotC boards and compare it to the rest of the boards. I think you'll find it gives your view the lie.

Just sit down with the thousands of LG people

Aha! There's your problem right there. I am not talking RPGA, which is largely notorious for having a more-competitive-than-the-norm style. Living campaigns are almost subcultures unto themselves, and a set of standards and assumptions apply to them beyond what exists in D&D. That you hang so much on the rules but hang nothing of conventions of the RPGA strikes as so contradictory as to be disingenuous.

However, you cannot say that 3e does not have its flaws, or that those flaws are entirely GM or Player fault. You have to lay some of the blame at the system and the method it's promoted.

3e does has it's flaws. But as to the malignancy of munchkinism being a playstyle thing and not a rules thing: I'm sayin' it.

 

[francisca]

(snip)
Just sit down with the thousands of LG people and you will see them in their majority glow at any given time.
(snip)
For every good that has a great time playing, there are GMs who sit behind a table and listen to players dissect their NPCs by guessing at their abilities, roll knowledge skills just to find out mechanics of monsters "In character" that the player already knows (call it meta-phishing) and wonder at how to handle this without going nuts.

Let me add to this that I have witnessed this very thing in LG. I sat and saw a guy roll a knowledge check, and the DM told him it was OK to pull out the MM and read up on the monster we were facing. I asked the guy if this was normal. He said something like: "Well, we got cheat books for Diablo and all the CRPGs, here we have Knowledge checks."

Looking around the room (there were 5 or 6 other groups), this seemed to be the normal style of play, even outside of LG.

I asked the DM about via an e-mail later. He confessed to being an old-school gamer, and he didn't like that, but it seemed to be the defacto way that stuff was handled in LG, so he just rolled with it.

Now, it is concievable that under 1E, a Cleric could cast commune, but that spell was limited to Yes/No answers. Off the top of my head, that is about as far as I think it could have gone, given the way the rules are written

Still, when I'm running a 3.X game, there is no way in hell I'd let a player look through the MM. So, I'm not bound by the rules to do so. (And I still have rule 0.)

However, I still contend, with everything designed/formulated/balanced, 3.X does enable a particular kind of play (per above), if not outright encouraging it, in a way that the previous editions did not. Couple that with the ever increasing array of "kewl stuff", the "cheat book/save game" mentality that many players have, it's no wonder many decry 3.X as "videogamish" and the province of munchkins.

Edit: For those of you who play that way, I hope you are having a good time. Knock yourself out. I'm not trying to put you or your playstyle down.

 

[Belen]

Let me add to this that I have witnessed this very thing in LG. I sat and saw a guy roll a knowledge check, and the DM told him it was OK to pull out the MM and read up on the monster we were facing. I asked the guy if this was normal. He said something like: "Well, we got cheat books for Diablo and all the CRPGs, here we have Knowledge checks."

Looking around the room (there were 5 or 6 other groups), this seemed to be the normal style of play, even outside of LG.

I asked the DM about via an e-mail later. He confessed to being an old-school gamer, and he didn't like that, but it seemed to be the defacto way that stuff was handled in LG, so he just rolled with it.

If I remember correctly,

Knowledge (Arcana) gives you info about magical creatures and beasts
Knowledge (nature) gives info on animals and natural creatures
Knowledge (dungeoneering) gives info on Aberrations

so on and so forth....

I do not play LG, but I had two of them in my old group. They convinced my wife (first time GM) to allow this type of activity. While they did not look in the MM, they said that a DC 15 + HD of creature) gaves them the ability to learn one of the special attacks, qualities etc for every 5 that they make it.

They actually took knowledge skills between them to blanket the monster spectrum.

This is the type of blatant cheese that I do not like about 3e. And say what you will, Psion, the RPGA is official and thus contributes to the promotion and culture of 3e.

In fact, many of the changes for 3.5 came about because of blatant cheating and playetesting within the RPGA, so they have a direct influence over the game.

I am not saying that all 3e games have these problems. I am saying that these problems are the trend within the game and the community and in some cases, being officially promoted and endorced by WOTC.

 

[francisca]

3e does has it's flaws. But as to the malignancy of munchkinism being a playstyle thing and not a rules thing: I'm sayin' it.

Psion, I largely agree. Put your Munchkin Beanie on for a few minutes and meditate on the greater truths of the D&D editions from the viewpoint of a player trying to build "The Ultimate D&D PC"

Of the various editions (3.5, 3.0, 2E + Options, 2E, 1E + UA, 1E, Basic/Expert/etc.., and the Diaglo Edition), which is easiest to Min/Max and manipulate? Which is easiest to discard actual roleplay in favor of using die rolls based on mechanics?

I'm not trolling, I'm not (intentionally) being a jerk, I'd like an honest opinion from a well seasoned fellow D&D player who spends alot of time analyzing the game.

 

[francisca]

In fact, many of the changes for 3.5 came about because of blatant cheating and playetesting within the RPGA, so they have a direct influence over the game.

That's interesting. Is that a quote from somebody on the design/devel team, message board conjecture, or something else? Seriously, I'm not trying to bust your nads.

 

[Psion]

Of the various editions (3.5, 3.0, 2E + Options, 2E, 1E + UA, 1E, Basic/Expert/etc.., and the Diaglo Edition), which is easiest to Min/Max and manipulate? Which is easiest to discard actual roleplay in favor of using die rolles based on mechanics?

I'm not trolling, I'm not (intentionally) being a jerk, I'd like an honest opinion from a well seasoned fellow D&D player who spends alot of time analyzing the game.

Honestly, I'd say 1e+UA or 2e+S&P.

Why is simple: they had lots of options that empowered you with minimal drawbacks. Free psionics. The cavalier. UA demihumans. Or in S&P, the cleric.

3e, by contrast, tries to make you pay for your abilities. I think that those that think that 3e is the ultimate munchkin's paradise that D&D has ever known have a very short memory.